hou needest a biscuit with thy wine. Ianthe!"

A pretty little girl stepped in from an adjoining room, her dark eyes
drooping shyly at the sight of the stranger.

"Thou seest I have a witness against thee," laughed the physician;
"while the evidence against me which the fools could not find we will
eat up. The remainder of the _Motsas_, daughterling!" And drawing a
key from under his pillow, he handed it to her. "Soft, now, my little
one, and hide them well."

When the child had gone, the father grumbled, over another glass of
wine, at having to train her to a double life. "But it sharpens the
wits," said he. "Ianthe should grow up subtle as the secret cupboard
within a cupboard which she is now opening. But a woman scarcely needs
the training." He was yet laughing over his jape when Ianthe returned,
and produced from under a napkin some large, thick biscuits,
peculiarly reticulated. Gabriel looked at them curiously.

"Knowest thou not Passover cakes?" asked Dom Diego.

Gabriel shook his head.

"Thou hast never eaten unleavened bread?"

"Unleavened bread! Ah, I was reading thereof in the Pentateuch but
yesterday. Stay, is it not one of the Inquisition's tests? But I
figured it not thus."

"'Tis the immemorial pattern, smuggled in from Amsterdam," said the
wine-flushed physician, throwing caution to the winds. "Taste! 'Tis
more palatable than the Host."

"Is Amsterdam, then, a Jewish town?"

"Nay, but 'tis the Jerusalem of the West. Little Holland, since she
shook off Papistry, hath no persecuting polity like the other nations.
And natural enough, for 'tis more a ship than a country. Half my old
friends have drifted thither--'tis a sad drain for our old Portuguese
community."

Gabriel's bosom throbbed. "Then why not join them?"

The old physician shook his head. "Nay, I love my Portugal. 'Tis here
that I was born, and here will I die. I love her--her mountains, her
rivers, her valleys, her medicinal springs--always love Portugal,
Ianthe--"

"Yes, father," said the little girl gravely.

"And, oh, her poets--her Rubeiro, her Falcao, her Camoens--my own
grandfather was thought worthy of a place in the 'Cancioneiro Geral';
and I too have made a Portuguese poem on the first aphorism of
Hippocrates, though 'tis yet in manuscript."

"But if thou darest not profess thy faith," said Gabriel, "'tis more
than all the rest. To live a daily lie--intolerable!"

"Hoity-toity! Thou art young and headstrong. The Cath